Many headphones having one or two headphones, particularly those that provide noise cancellation, generally include a cable mounted with an “in line” control pod. Such pods are necessarily small in size and weight, and, consequently, provide diminutive controls, levers, and switches for controlling operation of the headphones. These control elements may be so small that they provide poor visual and tactile feedback of the adjustment.
If control elements are mounted on the headphones, the operation of the headphones becomes even more difficult because the control elements are not visible and the operation may interfere with hairstyling, glasses, and ears. A user generally has to repeatedly take the headset on and off to adjust the controls.
In addition to the problem of using the controls, the control elements may add weight to a headphone, making a user wearing the headphone more uncomfortable. Adding controls to a headphone may have other undesirable effects. It may increase the size and cost of a headphone. At the same time, it may decrease the reliability of the headphone because these controls are generally small in size, making them less durable. As more controls are added to the design in the form of additional switches or knobs, the more complex the unit becomes, thereby decreasing the overall usability of the headphones. Users may be intimidated by the large number of controls. Furthermore, labeling the controls becomes an issue as well. As the space is limited, label space is also limited. As such, there is a need to reduce the number of input mechanisms for controlling a headphone, while supporting more control functions.
Another problem of a conventional noise reduction headphone is that fixed noise reduction filters are used, which limits the amount of noise reduction available, and does not allow a user to vary the noise canceling characteristics based on the external noise. For example, a user may wish that certain types of noise, such as voices or emergency sirens, not be canceled. The types of noise that should be canceled, and those that should not be canceled, may vary depending on the environment where the headphones are worn. Accordingly, filters that meet these needs would be desirable.